Growing eggplant (also known as aubergine) can be a fun and rewarding experience for any gardener. Eggplant is a versatile and tasty vegetable that can be used in a variety of dishes, making it a popular choice for home gardeners. If you’ve decided to grow eggplant in your vegetable garden this year, you’ll be pleased …
Even when I spend a lot of time and energy on my vegetable garden, I often encounter some problems that I wasn’t expecting. This year, I came across some tomato plant leaves curling for the first time. Walking around my garden, expecting to find a lush harvest of plump tomatoes and discovering a plant with curled …
I have been gardening for many years and my experience has taught me lots of tips and tricks for success. Today, I am sharing 22 vegetable garden mistakes to help anyone just starting out. Even though my first cucumber plant yielded me only a few cucumbers, I knew that vegetable gardening was for me and …
Many of us look forward to picking pumpkins for fall projects, recipes and decor. If you have planted and nurtured a crop of these vegetables, you likely have wondered when to harvest pumpkins. Depending on the variety, pumpkins normally take between 90 and 120 days from planting seed to maturity. Early varieties like Darling and …
For many gardeners, the promise of lush, red tomatoes is one of the highlights of summer. However, a common question that I get from readers is “why are my tomatoes splitting?” Cracked tomatoes can show up at any stage of the plants growth, either when green or ripe and red. No matter what time it …
Tomato bottom rot is a problem that many vegetable gardeners face. What causes that ugly black rot on tomatoes? There is nothing like biting into a lush, ripe garden tomato that you have spent months growing. Discovering those prize tomatoes with large rotten areas on them is no fun, though. What what causes those ugly …
Do you have a problem with radishes not growing bulbs? This is a common issue in a vegetable garden. What causes this to happen? Radishes – raphanus sativus – have edible greens which can be used in salads, but the main reason they are grown is for their crunchy and spicy round root. Expecting to …
Yellow leaves on tomato plants can be caused by several reasons. Nutritional deficiencies, plant diseases, and even the way you water tomatoes can play a part. Getting the right answer for why there are yellow leaves on tomato plants in your garden requires lots of research and a bit of trial and error. Tomatoes are …
Do you have a problem with soil born diseases in your cucumber plants? These cucumber trellis ideas will help to solve this stumbling block. Anyone who has grown cucumbers knows that they take up a LOT of room in a vegetable garden. One way to overcome the space problem is to use trellises or other climbing …
It’s about this time of the year that I get lots of questions from readers about ripening tomatoes on the vine. I’ve written a whole article about how to ripen tomatoes indoors. Now it’s time to see if we can hurry things up on the vine itself! Nothing is quite as frustrating as tomato plants …
The gardens are booming right now and many of my readers ask “why are my cucumbers turning yellow, round and deformed?” It could be the result of avoiding some common vegetable gardening problems, or might be another issue. Let’s see if we can figure out why this happens! Cucumbers are a popular warm season vegetable. …
Trying to control squash bugs can seem like an insurmountable task when you find them in your vegetable garden. If you grow zucchini or squash, you may be familiar with trying to deal with a squash bug infestation. These bugs can do a huge amount of damage, particularly to new plants. Young seedlings and plants …
I love watermelons. They are sweet, juicy, messy to eat, and remind me of summer like nothing else does. Did you know that there are many watermelon varieties which you probably haven’t even heard of? How many varieties of watermelon are there? More than 50 watermelon varieties are grown around the world. Because of the …
Onions are a vegetable that I use almost every day in recipes. Growing onions at home is easy, as long as you have a sunny garden spot and a patient nature. Onions are a cool weather crop. Get started early on your planting and you will be enjoying fresh onion bulbs by the middle 0f …
If you are looking for an easy to grow vegetable that ranks right up there in popularity with tomatoes, try growing green beans. Growing string beans is so easy that even gardeners with a brown thumb will be successful. The key is to wait until the ground is nice and warm. Even kids can get …
Believe it or not, this easy raised garden bed can be completed in a couple of hours. Once you have the supplies on hand, most of the work comes from cutting and staining the boards. If you have a very uneven ground area, you’ll need to add an hour for leveling the wall supports. Other …
If you have never tried to grow sweet potatoes before, you are in for a treat. Starting sweet potato slips is easy to do and lots of fun. Slips are the rooted sprouts that grow from an actual mature sweet potato. They are used to grow new sweet potato plants. Growing sweet potato slips is a …
Growing ginger from root is a fun kid’s project. Ginger is a tropical plant that is easy to grow indoors. All you need is a piece of fresh ginger, some water and some soil to get a plant growing. It seems that I am on a growing from scraps kick lately. There are many vegetables …
Knucklehead pumpkins, as the name suggests, are covered with warts that are reminiscent of the knuckles on your hand. This type of pumpkin, along with heirloom pumpkins of various colors and shapes, are all the trend right now for decorating. Have you ever headed to to pumpkin patch to get your pumpkin to carve only …
Make your own seed tape with some seeds and a roll of toilet paper. Why waste money on store bought seed planting tape when you can make your own seed tape with this common household item? The tutorial shows you how easy it is to plant tiny seeds in a vegetable garden. Have you ever …
Are you bothered by the cost of maintaining a garden? These creative DIY garden ideas on a budget should help to keep your costs down. I’ve put together a list of 30+ vegetable garden hacks that will make your gardening life easier and cheaper. One of the big pleasures of summer for me is tending …
Vegetable gardening in small spaces can be a challenge. My answer to this problem is to build a concrete block planter to use as a raised bed vegetable garden. Concrete blocks are inexpensive and making a raised bed with them is an easy project that can be accomplished in just a few hours. This year, …
Swiss chard is one of the easiest and most versatile of vegetables for home gardens. Its colorful stems and big, crinkly leaves are packed full of nutrients. Read on for tips on growing Swiss chard. What is Swiss Chard? Swiss Chard – beta vulgaris subsp. vulgarisis a leafy vegetable in the beet family, but it …
Growing Spring Onions is a garden project that starts early in the year. You’ll end up with small bulbous onions that have a much milder flavor than a normal yellow onion but can be used in the same way. I use onions all the time in my recipes, and fortunately for gardeners, they are very …
There are many vegetable garden problems that can plague the average gardener. Fortunately, there are also easy solutions to those problems. Not everything about vegetable gardening turns out as expected. Whether you choose to garden in raised beds or in the round, troubleshoot your vegetable garden with these easy tips to get a bumper harvest …
Do you have a problem with squirrels? If so, these natural squirrel repellent ideas may prove useful to you. Dealing with squirrels has been an ongoing problem for me in one way or another for several years. If you read my blog often, you may remember reading about the squirrels in my vegetable garden a few …